If you grew up in Coolock, Anne Byrne was a local celebrity – she is the owner of ‘The Van’. The crackled yellow paint of the van matched the colour of her house. It sat prominently in her garden, five doors down the road from my family home on Greencastle Crescent for my whole life.
The van stocked everything from a litre of milk to a sliced pan to 20 Blue. I remember growing up I could get a Freddo bar and a bottle of Cadet for 50 cent. The two cent jellies were always a best seller.
Anne and her mother, Mary Bird, started it up 43 years ago in 1972. She was only 29 at the time. My ma told me that they would tow the caravan, which was cut and crafted by her husband, Christy, to the church around the corner, where the congregation queued after mass to get their bits and bobs on a Sunday afternoon.
Anne had five kids throughout her time in the van; they’d take turns at doing shifts, giving Anne a break. The odd time I’d see Christy over there too.
Skipping forward a few years, and the van had come to a halt in Anne’s garden, which is where I always remember it being. The roads became too busy and it was blocking up outside the church, she told me. She never lost her business though; the same crowd would still pop round the corner after Sunday mass.
My house was always bustling with activity when I was growing up, the centre for my extended family with cousins and aunts and uncles coming and going. I’ve a big family and Anne was always well-known to the Clinch clan. My auntie Margaret would always buy The Evening Herald from her after work and get lost for hours in chat. They’d yap for ages, not feeling the time go by. Anne told me that that was always her favourite thing about the van, she loved chatting to the neighbours for hours, despite her also having a telly in there to watch the soaps.
Coolock was thriving when I was growing up, there were tonnes of kids around the area. It had quietened down a lot before I left last year. But even in its heyday, Anne would never let the young fellas congregate outside the van. ‘Mr Doran wasn’t well next door, you couldn’t have gangs of young fellas hanging around. I’d just say to them – you got what you wanted, now move off!’. She recalled one afternoon to me when two lads came to the van and held her up with a shotgun. That was scary moment.
I never set foot inside inside the van, not even when I photographed Anne. I was almost afraid to ask, having always stood at the hatch growing up. Now I wonder what it felt like to look out from it. Perhaps I should’ve gone inside?
Now, 43 years after she began, the van closed earlier this year as Anne is unwell. ‘I’m not sad to see it go. It’s time now after all these years,’ she said. It’ll always be an abiding memory for anyone who grew up on Greencastle Crescent. Walking back from the van to my family’s house, I noticed Francis, my neighbour, was watching out from her window, upset to see it go.
“Where’s my ma going to get her bread and milk now?’ I asked Anne. ‘Where am *I* going to get my bread and milk now?!’
Words & Photo: Conor Clinch
